PPMM Joins “Shout Your Vote!” Campaign

Voter-registration and outreach during a pandemic

Our first order of business, since March, has been helping patients navigate the COVID-19 health crisis, but we must also focus on the critical election that’s only a few months away. Every four years since 2008, we’ve been hearing that the coming election is the “most important in our lifetime.” And 2020 is no different.

PPMM has joined the “Shout Your Vote!” campaign, launched by Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), to spur voter turnout and engagement, including asking people to pledge to get three friends or family members to vote. The stakes are even higher this year. Not only for reproductive rights and access to health care, but for the fundamental rights of all Americans, especially those in underserved communities. Getting people to register to vote is critical.

Direct door-to-door contact with potential voters is not realistic during this time of physical distancing and shelter-in-place, but our community organizers are collaborating to launch virtual outreach efforts throughout the affiliate. The Public Affairs team is contacting voters directly through phone-banking, text-banking, and, with our Volunteer Services staff, engaging supporters to mobilize their communities and networks with the OutVote program. It includes an app that allows people to quickly and easily message their personal contacts, asking if they are registered and plan to vote. This form of “relational organizing” has been found to be even more effective than some traditional methods of voter outreach.

The Public Affairs team will also be launching efforts throughout our affiliate’s Generation Action college campus groups to register voters. In one of our must crucial get-out-the-vote efforts, Public Affairs directors and grassroots organizers are partnering with community allies to drive our campaign in low-income and communities of color.

In addition, Public Affairs staff will be putting flyers and posters with a voter engagement QR code in the entry ways and break rooms of our health centers. They will be working with our IT department to play PPMM’s non-partisan “How to Vote” videos, in English and Spanish, on TVs in our health center waiting rooms.

In September, Planned Parenthood Advocates Mar Monte, our sister organization that does electoral work, will publish the 2020 PPAMM Voter Guide. Stay tuned for a link to the PPAMM site and how to find more information about the voter guide.

Meanwhile, we’ll keep you posted about more virtual PPMM non-partisan voter-outreach efforts as we gear up for the final push before Election Day on November 3. Sign up below for our Volunteer Newsletter to stay informed.

For more information about how to get involved with "Shout Your Vote!" email Mel S., our Volunteer Services Program Director at [email protected].